OBSERVATIONS ON _KING JOHN_; ON _ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL_;
ON _KING HENRY THE FIFTH_; ON _MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING_; ON
_AS YOU LIKE IT_; ON _MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR_; ON _TROILUS
AND CRESSIDA_; ON _HENRY THE EIGHTH_; ON _TIMON OF ATHENS_;
ON _MEASURE FOR MEASURE_; ON _KING LEAR_; ON _CYMBELINE_; ON
_MACBETH_.—DISSERTATION ON THE _POPULAR BELIEF IN WITCHCRAFT_
DURING THE AGE OF SHAKSPEARE, AND ON HIS MANAGEMENT OF THIS
SUPERSTITION IN THE TRAGEDY OF _MACBETH_.
We are well aware, that, to many of our readers, the chronological
discussion incident to a new arrangement, will be lamented as tedious
and uninteresting; the more so, as nothing absolutely certain can be
expected as the result. That this part of our subject, therefore, may
be as compressed as possible, we shall, in future, be very brief in
offering a determination between the decisions of the two previous
chronologers, reserving a somewhat larger space for the few instances
in which it may be thought necessary to deviate from both.
Of the plays enumerated by Meres, in September, 1598, only two remain
to be noticed in this portion of our work, namely, _King John_ and
_Love's Labour's Wonne_:—
16. KING JOHN: 1598. Mr. Chalmers having detected some allusions in
this play to the events of 1597, in addition to those which Mr. Malone
had accurately referred to the preceding year, it becomes necessary,
with the former of these gentlemen, to assign its production to the
spring of 1598.[419:A]
If _King John_, as a whole, be not entitled to class among the very
first rate compositions of our author, it can yet exhibit some scenes
of superlative beauty and effect, and two characters supported with
unfailing energy and consistency.
The bastard Faulconbridge, though not perhaps a very amiable personage,
being somewhat too interested and worldly-minded in his conduct to
excite much of our esteem, has, notwithstanding, so large a portion
of _the very spirit of Plantagenet_ in him, so much heroism, gaiety,
and fire in his constitution, and, in spite of his vowed accommodation
to the times[420:A], such an open and undaunted turn of mind, that we
cannot refuse him our admiration, nor, on account of his fidelity to
John, however ill-deserved, our occasional sympathy and attachment.
The alacrity and intrepidity of his daring spirit are nobly supported
to the very last, where we find him exerting every nerve to rouse and
animate the conscience-stricken soul of the tyrant.
In the person of Lady Constance, _Maternal Grief_, the most interesting
passion of the play, is developed in all its strength; the picture
penetrates to the inmost heart, and seared must those feelings be,
which can withstand so powerful an appeal; for all the emotions of the
fondest affection, and the wildest despair, all the rapid transitions
of anguish, and approximating phrenzy, are wrought up into the scene
with a truth of conception which rivals that of nature herself.
The innocent and beauteous Arthur, rendered doubly attractive by the
sweetness of his disposition and the severity of his fate, is thus
described by his doating mother:—
"But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy!
Nature and fortune join'd to make thee great:
Of Nature's gifts thou may'st with lillies boast,
And with the half-blown rose."[420:B]
When he is captured, therefore, and imprisoned by John, and,
consequently, sealed for destruction, who but Shakspeare could have
done justice to the agonising sorrows of the parent? Her invocation
to death, and her address to Pandulph, paint maternal despair with a
force which no imagination can augment, and of which the tenderness and
pathos have never been exceeded:—
"Death, death:—O amiable lovely death!—
Come, grin on me; and I will think thou smil'st,—
—————————————— Misery's love,
O, come to me!——
—— Father cardinal, I have heard you say,
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:
If that be true I shall see my boy again;
For, since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
To him that did but yesterday suspire,
There was not such a gracious creature born.
But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost;
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;
And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.
_Pand._ You hold too heinous a respect of grief.
_Const._ He talks to me, that never had a son.
_K. Phi._ You are as fond of grief, as of your child.
_Const._ Grief fills the room up of my absent child.
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?
Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,
I could give better comfort than you do.—
I will not keep this form upon my head,
(_Tearing off her head-dress._
When there is such disorder in my wit.
O lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's cure!"[421:A] [_Exit._
Independent of the scenes which unfold the striking characters of
Constance and Faulconbridge, there are two others in this play which
may vie with any thing that Shakspeare has produced; namely, the
scene between John and Hubert, and that between Hubert and Arthur.
The former, where the usurper obscurely intimates to Hubert his
bloody wishes, is conducted in so masterly a manner, that we behold
the dark and turbulent soul of John lying naked before us in all its
deformity, and shrinking with fear even from the enunciation of its
own vile purpose; "it is one of the scenes," as Mr. Steevens has well
observed, "to which may be promised a lasting commendation. Art could
add little to its perfection; and time itself can take nothing from its
beauties."[422:A]
The scene with Hubert and the executioners, where the hapless Arthur
supplicates for mercy, almost lacerates the heart itself; and is only
rendered supportable by the tender and alleviating impression which
the sweet innocence and artless eloquence of the poor child fix with
indelible influence on the mind. Well may it be said, in the language
of our poet, that he who can behold this scene without the gushing
tribute of a tear,
"Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;—
Let no such man be trusted."
As for the character of John, which, from its meanness and imbecillity,
seems not well calculated for dramatic representation, Shakspeare has
contrived, towards the close of the drama, to excite in his behalf some
degree of interest and commiseration; especially in the dying scene,
where the fallen monarch, in answer to the enquiry of his son as to the
state of his feelings, mournfully exclaims,—
"Poison'd,—ill fare;—dead, forsook, cast off."
17. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL: 1598. There does not appear any
sufficient reason for altering the date assigned to this play by
Mr. Malone, whom we have, therefore, followed in preference to Mr.
Chalmers, who has fixed on the succeeding year; a decision to which we
have been particularly induced, independent of other circumstances, by
the apparent notice of this drama by Meres, under the title of _Love's
Labour's Wonne_, an appellation which very accurately applies to this,
but to no other of our author's productions with any similar degree
of pertinency. We have reason, therefore, to conclude, as nothing
has hitherto been brought forward to invalidate the assumption, that
Meres's title was the original designation of this comedy, and was
intended by the poet as a counter-title to _Love's Labour's Lost_. What
induced him to dismiss the first, and to adopt the present proverbial
appellation, cannot positively be ascertained; but the probability
is, as Mr. Malone has remarked, that the alteration was suggested
in consequence of the adage itself being found in the body of the
play.[423:A]
The noblest character in this comedy, which, though founded on a story
somewhat too improbable, abounds both in interest and entertainment,
is the good old _Countess of Rousillon_. Shakspeare seems to have
drawn this portrait _con amore_, and we figure to ourselves for this
amiable woman, a countenance beaming with dignity, sweetness, and
sensibility, emanations from a heart which had ever responded to the
impulses of love and charity. In short, her maternal affection for
the gentle Helen, her piety, sound sense, and candour, call for our
warmest reverence and esteem, which accompany her to the close of the
representation, and follow her departure with regret.[423:B]
Helen, the romantic, the love-dejected Helen, must excite in every
feeling bosom a high degree of sympathy; patient suffering in the
female sex, especially when resulting from ill-requited attachment, and
united with modesty and beauty, cannot but be an object of interest
and commiseration, and, in the instance before us, these are admirably
blended in
————————— "a maid too virtuous
For the contempt of empire,"
but who, unfortunately, has to struggle against the prejudices of
birth, rank, and unfeeling pride, in the very man who is the object of
her idolatry, and who, even after the most sacred of bonds should have
cemented their destiny, flies with scorn from her embraces.
If in the infancy of her passion the error of indiscretion be
attributable to Helen, how is it atoned for by the most engaging
humility, by the most bewitching tenderness of heart: "Be not
offended," she tells her noble patroness,
"Be not offended; for it hurts not him,
That he is lov'd of me: I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit;
Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be—
——————————— thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore
The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
But knows of him no more."[424:A]
But when the wife of Bertram, with a resignation and self-devotedness
worthy of the highest praise, she deserts the house of her
mother-in-law, knowing that whilst she is sheltered there her husband
will not return, how does she, becoming thus an unprotected wanderer, a
pilgrim _bare-foot plodding the cold ground_ for him who has contemned
her, rise to the tone of exalted truth and heroism!
—————————— "Poor lord! is't I
That chase thee from thy country, and expose
Those tender limbs of thine to the event
Of the none-sparing war? and is it I
That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou
Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark
Of smoky muskets?——
———————— No, come thou home, Rousillon:—
——————————— I will be gone:
My being it is, that holds thee hence:
Shall I stay here to do't? no, no, although
The air of paradise did fan the house,
And angels offic'd all: I will be gone;
That pitiful rumour may report my flight,
To consolate thine ear. Come, night,—
For, with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away."[425:A]
It was necessary, in order to place the character of Helen in
its most interesting point of view, that Bertram should be
represented as arrogant, profligate, and unfeeling; a coxcomb who to
family-consequence hesitates not to sacrifice all that is manly, just,
and honourable. The picture is but too true to nature, and, since
the poet found such a delineation essential to the construction of
his story, he has very properly taken care, though Bertram, out of
tenderness to the Countess and Helena, meets not the punishment he
merits, that nothing in mitigation of his folly should be produced.
To the comic portion of this drama too much praise can scarcely be
given; it is singularly rich in all that characterises the wit, the
drollery, and the humour of Shakspeare. The Clown is the rival of
Touchstone in _As You Like It_; and Parolles, in the power of exciting
laughter and ludicrous enjoyment, is only secondary to Falstaff.
18. KING HENRY THE FIFTH: 1599. The chorus at the commencement of the
fifth act, and the silence of Meres, too plainly point out the era of
the composition of this play, to admit of any alteration depending on
the bare supposition of subsequent interpolation, or on allusions too
vague and general to afford any specific application.
No character has been pourtrayed more at length by our poet than
that of Henry the Fifth, for we trace him acting a prominent part
through three plays. In _Henry the Fourth_, until the battle of
Shrewsbury, we behold him in all the effervescence of his mad-cap
revelry; occasionally, it is true, affording us glimpses of the
native mightiness of his mind, but first bursting upon us with heroic
splendour on that celebrated field. In every situation, however, he is
evidently the darling offspring of his bard, whether we attend him to
the frolic orgies in Eastcheap, to his combat with the never-daunted
Percy, or, as in the play before us, to the immortal plains of
Agincourt.
The fire and animation which inform the soul of Henry when he rushes to
arms in defence of his father's throne, are supported with unwearied
vigour, with a blaze which never falters, throughout the whole of his
martial achievements in France. Nor has Shakspeare been content with
representing him merely in the light of a noble and chivalrous hero, he
has endowed him with every regal virtue; he is magnanimous, eloquent,
pious, and sincere; versed in all the arts of government, policy,
and war; a lover of his country and of his people, and a strenuous
protector of their liberties and rights.
Of the various instances which our author has brought forward for the
exemplification of these virtues and acquirements, it may be necessary
to notice two or three. Thus the detection of the treason of Cambridge,
Gray, and Scroop, who had conspired to assassinate Henry previous
to his embarkation, exhibits a rich display of the mental greatness
and emphatic oratory of this warlike monarch. After reprobating the
treachery of Cambridge and Gray, he suddenly turns upon Scroop, who had
been his bosom-friend, with the following pathetic and soul-harrowing
appeal:—
——————————————— "But
What shall I say to thee, lord Scroop!—
Thou, that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul!—
May it be possible, that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil,
That might annoy my finger?—
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance!—
—————————— I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man."[426:A]
Nor can we forbear distinguishing the dismissal of these traitors,
as a striking example of magnanimity, and of justice tempered with
dignified compassion:—
"God quit you in his mercy!——
Touching our person, seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you three sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God, of his mercy, give you
Patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences!"[427:A]
In the fourth act, what a masterly picture of the cares and solicitudes
of royalty is drawn by Henry himself, in his noble soliloquy on the
morning of the battle, especially towards the close, where he contrasts
the gorgeous but painful ceremonies of a crown with the profitable
labour and the balmy rest of the peasant, who
——————————— "from the rise to set,
Sweats in the eye of Phœbus, and all night
Sleeps in Elysium!"
But the prayer which immediately follows is unrivalled for its power of
impression, presenting us with the most lively idea of the amiability,
piety, and devotional fervour of the monarch:—
"O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts!
—————————— Not to-day, O Lord,
O not to-day, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown!
I Richard's body have interred anew;
And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears,
Than from it issued forced drops of blood.
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a day their _wither'd_ hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul."[427:B]
Of the _picturesque force_ of an epithet, there is not in the records
of poetry a more remarkable instance than what is here produced by
the adoption of the term _withered_, through which the scene starts
into existence with a boldness of relief that vies with the noblest
creations of the pencil.
The address to Westmoreland, on his wishing for more men from England,
is a fine specimen of military eloquence, possessing that high tone of
enthusiasm and exhilaration, so well calculated to inflame the daring
spirit of the soldier. It is in perfect keeping with the historical
character of Henry, nor can we agree with Dr. Johnson in thinking that
its reduction "to about half the number of lines," would have added,
either to its force or weight of sentiment[428:A]; so far, indeed, are
we from coalescing with this decision, that we feel convinced not a
clause could be withdrawn without material injury to the animation and
effect of the whole.
Instances of the same impressive and energising powers of elocution,
will be found in the King's exhortation to his soldiers before
the gates of Harfleur[428:B]; in his description of the horrors
attendant on a city taken by storm[428:C]; and in his replies to the
Herald Montjoy[428:D]; all of which spring naturally from, and are
respectively adapted to the circumstances of the scene.
Nor, amid all the dangers and unparalleled achievements of the Fifth
Henry, do we altogether lose sight of the frank and easy gaiety which
distinguished the Prince of Wales. His winning condescension in
sympathising with the cares and pleasures of his soldiers, display the
same kindness and affability of temper, the same love of raillery and
humour, reminiscences, as it were, of his youthful days, and which, in
his intercourse with Williams and Fluellin, produce the most pleasing
and grateful relief.
These touches of a frolic pencil are managed with such art and
address, that they derogate nothing from the dignity of the monarch and
the conqueror; what may be termed the truly comic portion of the play,
being carried on apart from any immediate connection with the person of
the sovereign.
As the events of warfare and the victories of Henry form the sole
subjects of the serious parts of this piece, it was necessary for
the sake of variety and dramatic effect, and in order to satisfy the
audience of this age, that comic characters and incidents should be
interspersed; and, though we are disappointed in not seeing Falstaff,
according to the poet's promise, again on the scene, we once more
behold his associates, Bardolph, Pistol, and Hostess Quickly, pursuing
their pleasant career with unfailing eccentricity and humour. The
description of the death of Falstaff by the last of this fantastic
trio, is executed with peculiar felicity, for while it excites a smile
verging on risibility, it calls forth, at the same time, a sigh of pity
and regret.
Of the general conduct of this play, it may be remarked, that the
interest turns altogether upon the circumstances which accompany a
single battle; consequently the poet has put forth all his strength
in colouring and contrasting the situation of the two armies; and
so admirably has he succeeded in this attempt, by opposing the full
assurance of victory, on the part of the French, their boastful
clamour, and impatient levity, to the conscious danger, calm valour,
and self-devotedness of the English, that we wait the issue of the
combat with an almost breathless anxiety.
And, in order that the heroism of Henry might not want any decoration
which poetry could afford, the epic and lyric departments have been
laid under contribution, for the purpose of supplying what the very
confined limits of the stage, then in the infancy of its mechanism, had
no means of unfolding. A preliminary chorus, therefore, is attached
to each act, impressing vividly on the imagination what could not be
addressed to the senses, and adding to a subject, in itself more epic
than dramatic, all the requisite grandeur and sublimity of description.
19. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: 1599. The allusion, in the opening
scene of this comedy, to a circumstance attending the campaign of the
Earl of Essex in Ireland, during the summer of 1599, which was first
noticed by Mr. Chalmers, and which seems corroborated by the testimony
of Camden and Moryson[430:A], has induced us to adopt the chronology
dependent on this apparent reference, the only note of time, indeed,
which has hitherto been discovered in the play.
This very popular production which appears to have originally had
the title of _Benedick and Beatrice_[430:B], and is, in its leading
incidents, to be traced to one of the tales of Bandello[430:C],
possesses, both with respect to its fable and characters, a vivacity,
richness, and variety, together with a happiness of combination, which
delight as much as they astonish.
The two plots are managed with uncommon skill; the first, involving the
temporary disgrace and the recognition of Hero, includes a vast range
of emotions, and abounds both in pathos and humour. The accusation of
the innocent Hero by the man whom she loved, and at the very moment
too, when she was about to be united to him for life, excites a most
powerful impression; but is surpassed by the scene which restores her
to happiness, where Claudio, supposing himself about to be united,
in obedience to the will of Leonato, to a relation of his former
beloved, and, as he concludes, deceased mistress, on unveiling the
bride, beholds the features of her whom he had injured, and whom he had
lamented as no more.
It is no small proof of the ingenuity of our poet, that through the
means by which the iniquity practised against Hero is developed, we
are furnished with a fund of the most ludicrous entertainment; the
charge of Dogberry to the Watch, and the arrest and examination of
Conrade and Borachio, throwing all the muscles of risibility into
action.
Nor is the second plot in any respect inferior to the first; indeed,
there is reason to believe, that, to the masterly delineations of
Benedick and Beatrice, "the most sprightly characters that Shakspeare
ever drew," and to their mutual entrapment in the meshes of love, a
great part of the popularity which has ever accompanied this comedy,
is in justice to be ascribed. Fault, however, has been found with the
mode by which the reciprocal affection of these sworn foes to love
has been secured: "the second contrivance," observes Mr. Steevens,
"is less ingenious than the first:—or, to speak more plainly, the
same incident is become stale by repetition. I wish some other method
had been found to entrap Beatrice, than that very one which before
had been successfully practised on Benedick[431:A];" an objection
which has been censured with some severity by Schlegel, who justly
remarks, that the drollery of this twice-used artifice "lies in the
very symmetry of the deception."[431:B] It may be added, that the
conversation of the gentleman and the wit, in Shakspeare's days, may
be pretty well ascertained from the part of Benedick in this play, and
from that of Mercutio in _Romeo and Juliet_; both presenting us, after
some allowance for a licence of allusion too broad for the decorum of
the present day, with a favourable picture of the accomplishments of
polished society in the reign of Elizabeth.
20. AS YOU LIKE IT: 1600. Though this play, with the exception of the
disguise and self-discovery of Rosalind, may be said to be destitute
of plot, it is yet one of the most delightful of the dramas of
Shakspeare. There is something inexpressibly wild and interesting both
in the characters and in the scenery; the former disclosing the moral
discipline and the sweets of adversity, the purest emotions of love
and friendship, of gratitude and fidelity, the melancholy of genius,
and the exhilaration of innocent mirth, as opposed to the desolating
effects of malice, envy, and ambition; and the latter unfolding,
with the richest glow of fancy, landscapes to which, as objects of
imitation, the united talents of Ruysdale, Claude, and Salvator Rosa,
could alone do justice.
From the forest of Arden, from that wild wood of oaks,
——————— "whose boughs were moss'd with age,
And high tops bald with dry antiquity,"
from the bosom of sequestered glens and pathless solitudes, has the
poet called forth lessons of the most touching and consolitory wisdom.
Airs from paradise seem to fan with refreshing gales, with a soothing
consonance of sound, the interminable depth of foliage, and to breathe
into the hearts of those who have sought its shelter from the world,
an oblivion of their sorrows and their cares. The banished Duke, the
much-injured Orlando, and the melancholy Jaques, lose in meditation on
the scenes which surround them, or in sportive freedom, or in grateful
occupation, all corrosive sense of past affliction. Love seems the only
passion which has penetrated this romantic seclusion, and the sigh of
philosophic pity, or of wounded sensibility, (the legacy of a deserted
world,) the only relique of the storm which is passed and gone.
Nothing, in fact, can blend more harmoniously with the romantic
glades, and magic windings of Arden, than the society which Shakspeare
has placed beneath its shades. The effect of such scenery, on the
lover of nature, is to take full possession of the soul, to absorb
its very faculties, and, through the charmed imagination, to convert
the workings of the mind into the sweetest sensations of the heart,
into the joy of grief, into a thankful endurance of adversity, into
the interchange of the tenderest affections; and find we not here,
in the person of the Duke, the noblest philosophy of resignation; in
Jaques, the humorous sadness of an amiable misanthropy; in Orlando,
the mild dejection of self-accusing humility; in Rosalind and Celia,
the purity of sisterly affection, whilst love in all its innocence
and gaiety binds in delicious fetters, not only the younger exiles,
but the pastoral natives of the forest. A day thus spent, in all the
careless freedom of unsophisticated nature, seems worth an eternity of
common-place existence!
The nice discrimination of Shakspeare and his profound knowlege
of human nature are no where more apparent than in sketching the
character of Jaques, whose social and confiding affections, originally
warm and enthusiastic, and which had led him into all the excesses
and credulities of thoughtless attachment, being blighted by the
desertion of those on whom he had fondly relied, have suddenly subsided
into a delicately blended compound of melancholy, misanthropy, and
morbid sensibility, mingled with a large portion of benevolent
though sarcastic humour. The selfishness and ingratitude of mankind
are, consequently, the theme of all his meditations, and even tinge
his recreations with the same pensive hue of moral invective. We
accordingly first recognise him in a situation admirably adapted to the
nurture of his peculiar feelings, laid at length
"Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along the wood,"
and assimilating the fate of an unfortunate stag, who had been wounded
by the hunters, and who
"Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears,"
to the too common lot of humanity:—
"_Duke._ But what said Jaques?
Did he not moralize this spectacle?
_Lord._ O yes, into a thousand similes.
First, for his weeping in the needless stream;
_Poor deer_, quoth he, _thou mak'st a testament
As worldings do, giving the sum of more
To that which had too much._ Then, being there alone,
Left and abandoned of his velvet friends;
_'Tis right_, quoth he; _thus misery doth part
The flux of company._ Anon, a careless herd,
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,
And never stays to greet him. _Ay_, quoth Jaques,
_Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?_"[434:A]
As might be imagined, music, the food of melancholy as well as of love,
is the chief consolation of Jaques; he tells Amiens, who, on finishing
a song, had objected to his request of singing again, that it would
make him melancholy. "I thank it. More, I pr'ythee more. I can suck
melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs: More, I pr'ythee,
more[434:B];" and we can well conceive with what exquisite pleasure he
listened to the subsequent song of the same nobleman:
"Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.—
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot;
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not."[434:C]
From this interesting and finely shaded character, the result of a
false estimate of what is to be expected from human nature and society,
much valuable instruction may be derived; but as a similar delineation
will soon occur in the person of Timon, we shall defer what may be
required upon this subject to a subsequent page.
21. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR: 1601. It does not appear to us that Mr.
Chalmers has succeeded in his endeavours to set aside the general
tradition relative to this comedy, as recorded by Mr. Rowe, who says,
that Queen Elizabeth "was so well pleased with the admirable character
of Falstaff in _The Two Parts of Henry the Fourth_, that she commanded
Shakspeare to continue it for one play more, and to show him in
love."[435:A] Rowe adopted this from Dennis, who mentions it as the
tradition of his time; and has also related, that being "eager to see
it acted," she ordered it "to be finished in _fourteen days_[435:B],"
and was highly gratified by the representation.
A tradition of the seventeenth century thus general in its diffusion,
and particular in its circumstances, cannot, and ought not, to be
shaken by the mere observations that "she (the Queen) was certainly
too feeble in 1601 to think of such toys," and that at this time "she
was in no proper mood for such fooleries[435:C];" more especially when
we recollect, that at this very period, she was guilty of fooleries
greatly more extravagant and out of character, than that of commanding
a play to be written. At a "mask at Blackfriars, on the marriage of
Lord Herbert and Mrs. Russel," relates Lord Orford, on the authority
of the Bacon Papers, "eight lady maskers chose eight more to dance the
measures. Mrs. Fritton, who led them, went to the Queen, and wooed
her to dance. Her Majesty asked, what she was? 'AFFECTION,' she said.
'AFFECTION!' said the Queen;—'_AFFECTION is false._'—Yet her majesty
rose and _danced_.—She was then SIXTY-EIGHT![435:D]" If, at the age of
SIXTY-EIGHT, she was not _too feeble to dance_, nor _too wise to fancy
herself in love_, we may easily conceive, that she had both _strength_
and _inclination_ to attend and to enjoy a play!
Another objection of the same critic to the probability of this
tradition, turns upon the extraordinary assumption, that it was not
within the omnipotence of Elizabeth "to bring Falstaff to _real
life_, after being _positively as dead as nail in door_[436:A];" as
if Falstaff had ever possessed a _real_ existence, and the Queen had
been expected to have occasioned his _bodily_ resurrection from the
dead. In accordance with this supposed impossibility, impossible only
in this strange point of view, we are further told, that "whatever a
capricious Queen might have wished to have seen, the audience would
not have borne to see the _dead_ knight on the _living_ stage;" thus
again confounding the _dramatic_ death of an _imaginary_ being, with
the physical dissolution incident to material nature! Surely Shakspeare
had an unlimited control over the creatures of his own imagination, and
had he reproduced the fat knight in half-a-dozen plays, after the death
which he had already assigned him in _Henry the Fifth_, who, provided
he had supported the merit and consistency of the character, would
have charged him with a violation of probability? When Addison killed
Sir Roger de Coverley, in order, as tradition says, to prevent any one
interfering with the unity of his sketch, he could only be certain
of the non-resumption of his imaginary existence in the very work
which had detailed his decease; for if Addison himself, or any of his
contemporaries, had reproduced Sir Roger, in a subsequent periodical
paper, with the same degree of skill which had accompanied the first
delineation, would it have been objected as a sufficient condemnation
of such a performance, that the knight had been previously dispatched?
We see no reason, therefore, for distrusting the generally received
tradition, and have, accordingly, placed the _Merry Wives of Windsor_,
with Mr. Malone, after the three plays devoted to _Henry the Fourth_,
and _Fifth_.
In this very entertaining drama, which unfolds a vast display of
incident, and a remarkable number of well-supported characters, we are
presented with an almost unrivalled instance of pure domestic comedy,
and which furnishes a rich draught of English minds and manners, in
the middle ranks of society, during one of the most interesting periods
of our annals.
Shakspeare has here achieved, perhaps, the most difficult task which
can fall to the lot of any writer; that of resuscitating a favourite
and highly-wrought child of the imagination, and, with a success equal
to that which attended the original production, re-involving him in
a series of fresh adventures. Falstaff has not lost, in this comedy,
any portion of his former power of pleasing; he returns to us in the
fulness of his strength, and we immediately enter, with unabated
avidity and relish, into a further developement of his inexhaustible
stores of humour, wit, and drollery.
The self-delusion of Sir John, who conceives himself to be an object
of love, and the incongruities, absurdities, and intrigues, into which
this monstrous piece of vanity plunges him, form, together with the
secondary plot of Fenton and Anne Page, the richest tissue of incident
and stratagem that ever graced a stage. The mode, also, in which the
two intrigues are interwoven, the happy termination of the second,
arising out of the contrivance which brings about the issue of the
first, has a just claim to praise both for its invention and execution.
To the comic characters which had formerly been associated with the
exploits of the Knight, and which, as accessories or retainers,
accompany him in this play, some very laughable and grotesque additions
are to be found in the persons of _Slender_, _Sir Hugh Evans_, and _Dr.
Caius_, who are deeply implicated in the fable, and who, by the most
ludicrous exhibitions of rustic simplicity, provincial accent, and
broken English, contribute in a high degree to the variety and hilarity
of the scene.
22. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA: 1601. That this play was written and acted before
the decease of Queen Elizabeth, is evident from the manner in which
it is entered on the Stationers' Books, being registered on February
7. 1602-3, "_as acted by my Lord Chamberlen's men_[437:A]," who, in
the year of the accession of King James, obtained a licence for their
theatre, and were denominated "_his majesty's servants_."
It also appears, from some entries in Mr. Henslowe's Manuscript, that
a drama on this subject, at first called _Troyelles and Cresseda_,
but, before its production, altered in its title to "_The Tragedy of
Agamemnon_," was in existence anterior to Shakspeare's play, and was
licensed by the Master of the Revels, on the 3rd of June, 1599.[438:A]
From these premises we have a right to infer that our poet's _Troilus
and Cressida_ was written between June, 1599, and February, 1603, and,
accordingly, our two chronologers have thus placed it; Mr. Malone in
1602, and Mr. Chalmers in 1600. But it appears to us, for reasons which
we shall immediately assign, that its more probable era is that of 1601.
It has been correctly observed by the Commentators, that an incident
in our author's _Troilus and Cressida_, is ridiculed in an anonymous
comedy, entitled _Histriomastix_, "which, though not printed till 1610,
must have been written before the death of Queen Elizabeth, who, in the
last act of the piece, is shadowed, under the character of Astræa, and
is spoken of as then living."[438:B]
We cannot avoid thinking it somewhat extraordinary that when Mr. Malone
recorded this circumstance, it did not occur to him, that, by placing
the composition of Shakspeare's play in 1602, he allowed scarcely
any time to the author of _Histriomastix_ for the composition of his
work. In order that a parody or burlesque may be successful, it is
necessary that the production ridiculed, should have acquired a certain
degree of celebrity, and however well received by the court, before
which it was at first chiefly performed, this drama of our author may
have been, some time must have elapsed ere it could have acquired a
sufficient degree of notoriety for the purpose of successful satire.
But if Shakspeare wrote his _Troilus and Cressida_ in 1602, and had
even completed it by the middle of the year, scarcely nine months
could intervene between this completion and the death of the Queen
in March, 1603; and during this short interval, the play of our poet
must have been acted, and celebrated so repeatedly and so highly,
as to have excited the pen of envy and burlesque, and the comedy of
_Histriomastix_ must have been written and performed; a space certainly
much too inadequate for these effects and results, more particularly if
we are allowed to conclude, what most probably was the case, that the
anonymous comedy was finished some months anterior to the decease of
Elizabeth.
On the other hand, it would seem that Mr. Chalmers, by approximating
the date of Shakspeare's play too closely to that of the elder drama,
may be taxed with a similar error. That our poet was in the habit of
adopting subjects which had been previously rendered popular on the
stage, has been acknowledged by all his commentators, and that his
attention was first attracted to the fable under consideration, by the
play exhibited on Mr. Henslowe's theatre, there can be little doubt.
But this production, we find, was not licensed by the Master of the
Revels until June, 1599, and as popularity attached to the performance
would be necessary to stimulate Shakspeare to remodel the subject, we
can scarcely conceive him, both on this account, and from a motive of
delicacy to a rival theatre, to have commenced the composition of his
_Troilus and Cressida_ before the beginning of 1601.
It was at this period then, that our bard, excited by the success of
the prior attempt in 1599, turned his attention to the subject; and,
referring to his Chaucer, to Caxton's Translation of the _Recuyles or
Destruction of Troy_, from _Raoul le Fevre_, and to the first seven
books of Chapman's Homer, for the materials of his story, presented us
with the most singular, and, in some respects, the most striking, of
his productions.
This play is, indeed, a most perfect _unique_ both in its construction
and effect, appearing to be a continued sarcasm on the _tale of Troy
divine_, an ironical copy, as it were, of the great Homeric picture.
Whether this was in the contemplation of Shakspeare, or whether it
might not, in a great measure, flow from the nature of the Gothic
narratives to which he had recourse, may admit of some doubt. As
Homer, however, was in part before him, in the excellent version of
Chapman, it appears to us, that it certainly was his design to expose
the follies and absurdities of the Trojan war; the despicable nature
of its origin, and the furious discords which protracted its issue. In
doing this he has stripped the Homeric characters of all their epic
pomp; he has laid them naked to the very heart, but he has, at the
same time, individualised them, with a pencil so keen, powerful, and
discriminating, that we become more intimately acquainted with them,
as mere men, from the perusal of this play, than from all the splendid
descriptions of the Greek poet.
This unparalleled strength and distinctness of characterisation, as
unfolded in the play before us, has been admirably painted by Mr.
Godwin. "The whole catalogue," he observes, "of the _Dramatis Personæ_
in the play of _Troilus and Cressida_, so far as they depend upon
a rich and original vein of humour in the author, are drawn with a
felicity which never was surpassed. The genius of Homer has been a
topic of admiration to almost every generation of men since the period
in which he wrote. But his characters will not bear the slightest
comparison with the delineation of the same characters as they stand
in Shakspeare. This is a species of honour which ought by no means to
be forgotten when we are making the eulogium of our immortal bard, a
sort of illustration of his greatness which cannot fail to place it
in a very conspicuous light. The dispositions of men perhaps had not
been sufficiently unfolded in the very early period of intellectual
refinement when Homer wrote; the rays of humour had not been dissected
by the glass, or rendered perdurable by the pencil, of the poet.
Homer's characters are drawn with a laudable portion of variety, and
consistency; but his Achilles, his Ajax, and his Nestor are, each of
them, rather a species than an individual, and can boast more of the
propriety of abstraction, than of the vivacity of a moving scene of
absolute life. The Achilles, the Ajax, and the various Grecian heroes
of Shakspeare, on the other hand, are absolute men, deficient in
nothing which can tend to individualise them, and already touched with
the Promethean fire that might infuse a soul into what, without it,
were lifeless form. From the rest perhaps the character of Thersites
deserves to be selected, (how cold and school-boy a sketch in Homer,)
as exhibiting an appropriate vein of sarcastic humour amidst his
cowardice, and a profoundness and truth in his mode of laying open the
foibles of those about him, impossible to be excelled.
"Shakspeare possessed, no man in higher perfection, the true dignity
and loftiness of the poetical afflatus, which he has displayed in
many of the finest passages of his works with miraculous success.
But he knew that no man ever was, or ever can be, always dignified.
He knew that those subtler traits of character which identify a man,
are familiar and relaxed, pervaded with passion, and not played off
with an external eye to decorum. In this respect the peculiarities of
Shakspeare's genius are no where more forcibly illustrated than in the
play we are here considering. The champions of Greece and Troy, from
the hour in which their names were first recorded, had always worn
a certain formality of attire, and marched with a slow and measured
step. No poet, till this time, had ever ventured to force them out
of the manner which their epic creator had given them. Shakspeare
first supplied their limbs, took from them the classic stiffness of
their gait, and enriched them with an entire set of those attributes,
which might render them completely beings of the same species with
ourselves."[441:A]
The great defect of this play, which, in other respects, is highly
entertaining and instructive, and abounding in didactic morality,
expressed with the utmost beauty, vigour, and boldness of diction, is
a want of attachment for its characters. If we set aside Hector, who
seems to have been the favourite hero with Shakspeare, and his Gothic
authorities, there is not a person in the drama, for whom we feel any
sympathy or interest; the Grecian chiefs, though varied and coloured
in the highest style of relief, are any thing but amiable, and of the
persons involved in the love-intrigue, two are proverbially infamous,
whilst the forsaken Troilus appears in too tame and inefficient a light
to call forth any share of admiration or regret.
23. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH: 1602. Few of the plays of Shakspeare have
occasioned more difference of opinion, with regard to the era of their
production, than this historical drama. Mr. Malone contends that
it was written in 1601 or 1602, and that, after having lain by for
some years unacted, on account of the costliness of its exhibition,
it was revived in 1613, under the title of _All is True_, with new
decorations, and a new prologue and epilogue; and that this revival
took place on the very day, being St. Peter's, on which the Globe
Theatre was burnt down, occasioned, it is said, by the discharge of
some small pieces, called chambers, on King Henry's arrival at Cardinal
Wolsey's gate at Whitehall, one of which, being injudiciously managed,
set fire to the thatched roof of the theatre. He also joins with Dr.
Johnson and Dr. Farmer in conceiving, that the prologue, and even
some part of the dialogue, were, on this occasion, written by Ben
Jonson, to whom he also ascribes the conduct and superintendence of the
representation.[442:A]
Mr. Chalmers, on the contrary, believes that this piece was neither
represented nor written before 1613, and that its first appearance
on the stage was the night of the conflagration above-mentioned.
He reprobates the folly of supposing "that Ben Jonson, _who was in
perpetual hostility with Shakspeare_, made _adycyons_ to _Henry VIII._,
or even wrote the prologue for our poet."[442:B]
And, lastly, Mr. Gifford declares it to be his conviction that the
tragedy of our poet was produced in 1601; but that, on the supposed
revival of it in 1613, neither the prologue was written by Jonson, nor
the play by Shakspeare, the piece then performed being a _new play_,
called _All is Truth_, constructed, indeed, on the history of Henry the
Eighth, and, like that, full of shows, but not the composition of our
author. He has here likewise, as every where else, very successfully
combated the prejudice and credulity of the commentators, in their
perpetual assumption of the enmity of Jonson to Shakspeare.[443:A]
For the arguments by which these conflicting opinions are maintained,
we must refer to the respective writings of the combatants, our
limits only permitting us to state and briefly to support one or two
circumstances which, in our view of them, seem irresistibly to prove,
that, in the first place, the play performed on the 29th of June, 1613,
was _Shakspeare's tragedy of Henry the Eighth_; and, secondly, that it
was _his tragedy revived_, with a new name, and with a _new prologue,
both emanating from himself_.
Now, if the prologue which has always accompanied our author's drama
from its first publication in 1623, _manifestly_ and _repeatedly
allude_ to the _title_ of the play which was represented on the 29th of
June, 1613, and which we know to have been founded on the history of
King Henry the Eighth, can there be a stronger proof of their identity,
or a more satisfactory reply to the query of Mr. Gifford, who asks,
who would have recognised _Henry the Eighth_ under the name of _All is
Truth_? (or rather, as he should have said, _All is True_?) than what
these intimations afford? That they have, indeed, been noticed both
by Mr. Tyrwhitt and Mr. Malone, as alluding to the title in question,
is true; but they appear to us so important and decisive, as to merit
being brought forward more distinctly, especially as they have escaped
Mr. Gifford's attention. We shall therefore transcribe them, being
convinced that not accident but design dictated their insertion:—
—————————— "Such, as give
Their money out of hope they may believe,
May here find _truth_ too."
——————————— "Gentle readers, know,
To rank _our chosen truth_ with such a show
As fool and fight is," &c.—
"To make that only _true_ we now intend."
That the play represented at the Globe in 1613, was merely a _revived_
play, wants no other proof than the following:—In a MS. letter of Tho.
Lorkin to Sir Tho. Puckering, dated _London, this last of June, 1613_,
Lorkin tells his friend, that "No longer since than YESTERDAY,
while Bourbage his companie were acting at the Globe _THE
play of Hen. VIII._ and there shooting of certayne chambers in way of
triumph, the fire catched," &c.[444:A]
We would now enquire if it were possible that any rational person
writing from London to his friend in the country, concerning a _new_
play which had been performed, for the first time, but the day before
the date of his letter, could make use of language such as this? Must
he not necessarily have said, _A play, or A new play, called Hen.
VIII._? And does not the phraseology which he has adopted, namely,
"_THE play of Hen. VIII._," evidently imply that the piece had been
long known?
So decidedly, in our opinion, do these two circumstances prove, that
it was _Shakspeare's Henry the Eighth REVIVED_, which was performed
at the Globe Theatre on St. Peter's day, 1613, that we no longer
hesitate a moment in admitting, with the principal commentators, that
this tragedy was originally written but a short time anterior to the
death of Elizabeth, to whom some elegant and appropriate praise is
offered; and that the compliment to James the First, rather forcibly
introduced into the closing scene, was composed by our poet expressly
for the revival of 1613; admissions which not only seem warranted by
the internal evidence of the play, but almost necessarily flow from the
establishment of the two inferences for which we have contended.
There is much reason to conclude that, in the long interval between
the death of Queen Elizabeth, and the year 1613, our author's _Henry
the Eighth_ had never been performed; and it is further probable that,
on this account, and in consequence of its receiving a _new_ name, a
_new_ prologue and epilogue, and _new_ decorations of unprecedented
splendour, the players might, as Mr. Malone has suggested, have called
it in the bills of that time a _new_ play[445:A]; an epithet which we
find Sir Henry Wotton has adopted, when describing the accident at the
Globe Theatre, and which, if writing in haste, or with less attention
to the history of the stage than occurs in the letter of Mr. Lorkin, he
might, from similar causes, naturally be expected to repeat.[445:B]
In adjusting the chronology of this play Mr. Malone has remarked, that
Shakspeare, having produced so many plays in the preceding years, "it
is not likely that _King Henry the Eighth_ was written _before_ 1601.
It might, perhaps, with _equal propriety_, be ascribed to 1602."[445:C]
We have fixed upon the latter date, for this obvious reason, that our
enquiries, having led us to supply the preceding year with two plays,
it has been thought more consonant to probability to assign it to the
less occupied period of 1602. It appears to us, therefore, to have been
composed about a twelvemonth previous to the death of the Queen, an
event which occurred in March, 1603.
It need scarcely be added, that, from Mr. Gifford's complete refutation
of the slander which has been so long indulged in against the character
of Ben Jonson, we utterly disbelieve that this calumniated poet had any
concern in the revival of _Henry the Eighth_.
The entire interest of this tragedy turns upon the characters of _Queen
Katharine_ and _Cardinal Wolsey_; the former being the finest picture
of suffering and defenceless virtue, and the latter of disappointed
ambition, that poet ever drew. The close of the second scene of the
third act, which describes the fall of Wolsey, and the whole of the
second scene of the fourth, which paints the dying sorrows and devout
resignation of the persecuted Queen, have, as lessons of moral worth,
a never-dying value; and of the latter, especially, it may without
extravagance be said, that, in its power of exciting sympathy and
compassion, it stands perfectly unrivalled by any dramatic effort of
ancient or of modern time.
24. TIMON OF ATHENS: 1602. The existence of a manuscript play on this
subject, to which our author has been evidently indebted, ought, in the
absence of all other direct testimony, to be considered as our guiding
star. Here, says Mr. Malone, our poet "found the faithful steward,
the banquet scene, and the story of Timon's being possessed of great
sums of gold which he had dug up in the woods: a circumstance which he
could not have had from Lucian, there being then no translation of the
dialogue that relates to this subject[446:A];" and, in another place
he remarks, that this manuscript comedy "appears to have been written
after Ben Jonson's _Every Man out of his Humour_, (1599,) to which it
contains a reference; but I have not discovered the precise time when
it was composed. If it were ascertained, it might be some guide to us
in fixing the date of our author's _Timon of Athens_, which I suppose
to have been posterior to this anonymous play."[446:B]
Now Mr. Steevens, who accurately inspected the manuscript play, tells
us that it appears to have been written about the year 1600[446:C],
whilst Mr. Chalmers has brought forward several intimations which, he
thinks, prove, that Shakspeare's drama was written during the reign of
Elizabeth.[446:D]
These statements, it is obvious, bring the subject into a small
compass; for as the anonymous comedy must have been composed after
1599, referring, as it does, to a drama of that date, and as some
incidents in Shakspeare's Timon are evidently founded upon it, whilst
the death of Elizabeth took place in March, 1603, the play of our poet
must necessarily, if Mr. Chalmers's intimations be relied upon, have
been completed in the interim.
Indeed the only argument on the other side for fixing the date of
this play in 1609, is built upon the supposition that Shakspeare
commenced the study of Plutarch in 1605, and that having once availed
himself of this historian for one of his plays, he was induced to
proceed, until _Julius Cæsar_, _Anthony and Cleopatra_, _Timon_, and
_Coriolanus_, had been written in succession.[447:A] But, as it has
been clearly ascertained by Mr. Chalmers, that Shakspeare was perfectly
well acquainted with Plutarch when he wrote his Hamlet[447:B], this
supposition can no longer be tenable.
We have fixed on the year 1602 rather than 1601, for the era of the
composition of our author's play, as it is equally susceptible of
the illustration adduced by Mr. Chalmers, allows more scope for the
production of the elder drama, and, at the same time, more opportunity
to our poet to have become familiar with a comedy which, there is
reason to think, from its pedantic style, was never popular, and
certainly never was printed.
_Timon of Athens_ is an admirable satire on the folly and ingratitude
of mankind; the former exemplified in the thoughtless profusion
of Timon, the latter in the conduct of his pretended friends; it
is, as Dr. Johnson observes, "a very powerful warning against that
ostentatious liberality, which scatters bounty, but confers no
benefits, and buys flattery, but not friendship."[447:C]
But the mighty reach of Shakspeare's mind is in this play more
particularly distinguishable in his delineation of the species and
causes of misanthropy, and in the management of the delicate shades
which diversify its effects on the heart of man. Timon and Apemantus
are both misanthropes; but from very different causes, and with very
different consequences, and yet they mutually illustrate each other.
The misanthropy of Timon arises from the perversion of what would
otherwise have been the foundation of his happiness. He possesses
great goodness and benevolence of heart, an ardent love of mankind, a
spirit noble, enthusiastic, and confiding, but these are unfortunately
directed into wrong channels by the influence of vanity, and the thirst
of distinction. Rich in the amplest means of dispensing bounty, he
receives, in return, such abundant praise, especially from the least
deserving and the most designing, that he becomes intoxicated with
adulation, craving it, at length, with the avidity of an appetite, and
preferring the applause of the world to the silent approval of his own
conscience.
The immediate consequence of this delusion is, that he seeks to
bestow only where celebrity is to follow; he does not fly to succour
poverty, misfortune, and disease, in their sequestered haunts, but
he showers his gifts on poets, painters, warriors, and statesmen, on
men of talents or of rank, whose flattery, either from genius or from
station, will find an echo in the world. The next result of beneficence
thus abused, is that Timon possesses numerous _nominal_ but no _real_
friends, and, when the hour of trial comes, he is, to a man, deserted
in his utmost need. It is then, that having no estimate of friendship
but what reposed on the characters who have left him bare to the storm,
and concluding that the rest of mankind, compared with those whom he
had selected, are rather worse than better, he gives loose to all the
invective which deceived affection and wounded vanity can suggest;
feeling, as it were, an abhorrence of, and an aversion to, his species,
in proportion to the keenness of his original sensibility, and the
agony of his present disappointment.
The inherent goodness of Timon on the one hand, and his avarice of
praise and flattery on the other, are vividly brought out through the
medium of his servants, and of the Cynic Apemantus. The true criterion,
indeed, of the worth of any individual, is best found in the estimation
of his household, and we entertain a high sense of the value of
Timon's character, from the attachment and fidelity of his dependants.
They, in their humble intercourse with their master, have intimately
felt the native benevolence of his disposition, and, to the disgrace of
those who have revelled in his bounty, are the only sympathizers in his
fate. They call to mind his generous virtues:—
"Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart;
Undone by goodness!"
is the exclamation of his faithful steward; nor are the inferior
domestics less sensible of his worth:—
"_1 Serv._ So noble a master fallen!—and not
One friend, to take his fortune by the arm!—
_3 Serv._ Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery,
That see I by our faces."[449:A]
When Flavius visits his master in his seclusion, and with the most
disinterested views and the most heart-felt commiseration, offers
him his wealth and his attendance, Timon starts back with amazement
bordering on distraction, afflicted and aghast at the recognition,
when too late, of genuine friendship, and self-convicted of injustice
towards his fellow-creatures:—
"Had I a steward so true, so just, and now
So comfortable? It almost turns
My dangerous nature wild.[449:B] Let me behold
Thy face.—Surely, this man was born of woman.—
Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,
Perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim
One honest man,—mistake me not,—but one;
No more, I pray,—and he is a steward.—
How fain would I have hated all mankind,
And thou redeem'st thyself!"[449:C]
If the constitutional goodness of Timon is to be inferred from the
conduct of his domestics, the errors which overshadowed it are most
distinctly laid open by the unsparing invective of Apemantus. The
misanthropy of this character is not based, like Timon's, on the wreck
of the noblest feelings of our nature, on the milk of human kindness
turned to gall, but springs from the vilest of our passions, from
envy, hatred, and malice. He is born a beggar, and his pride is to
continue such, while his sole occupation, his pleasure and his choice,
is to drag forth the vices, and calumniate the virtues of humanity.
For this task he possesses, in the powers of his intellect, the utmost
efficiency, and seems, indeed, to have been introduced by the poet
for the express purpose of unfolding the conduct of Timon. The two
characters, in fact, reciprocally anatomise each other, and with a
depth and minuteness which leaves nothing undetected.
The lust of flattery and distinction which burns in the bosom of Timon,
finds, even in the height of his prosperity, a sharp, and therefore a
wholesome reprover in Apemantus, who tells the Athenian to his face,
that "he that loves to be flattered, is worthy of the flatterer," at
the same time exposing his limitless and ill-bestowed bounty in the
strongest terms; but no good man would choose the hour of adversity
and overwhelming distress for a still bitterer torrent of taunts and
reproaches, at a period when nothing but additional misery could accrue
from the experiment. Such, however, is the object of Apemantus, in
his visit to the cave of Timon, and accordingly he experiences the
reception which his motives so richly deserve:—
"_Tim._ Why dost thou seek me out?
_Apem._ To vex thee.
_Tim._ Always a villain's office, or a fool's.
Dost please thyself in't!
_Apem_. Ay.
_Tim._ What! a knave too?"
immediately after which, the unhappy Timon proceeds, with admirable
discrimination, to contrast himself and his persecutor; a description
which, for strength and severity, as well as truth of censure, has
never been exceeded:—
"_Tim._ Thou art a slave, whom Fortune's tender arm
With favour never clasp'd; but bred a dog.
Had'st thou like us, from our first swath, proceeded
The sweet degrees that this brief world affords
To such as may the passive drugs of it
Freely command, thou would'st have plung'd thyself
In general riot; melted down thy youth
In different beds of lust; and never learn'd
The icy precepts of respect, but follow'd
The sugar'd game before thee. But myself,
Who had the world as my confectionary;
The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts of men
At duty, more than I could frame employment;
That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves
Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush
Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare
For every storm that blows;—I, to bear this,
That never knew but better, is some burden:
Thy nature did commence in sufferance, time
Hath made thee hard in't. Why should'st thou hate men?
They never flatter'd thee: What hast thou given?
If thou wilt curse,—thy father, that poor rag,
Must be thy subject; who, in spite, put stuff
To some she-beggar, and compounded thee,
Poor rogue hereditary. Hence! be gone!—
If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,
Thou hadst been a knave, and flatterer."[451:A]
In revenge for this correct, but tremendous picture of himself,
Apemantus, shortly afterwards, presents Timon with a miniature of his
own character, so faithfully condensed, that it comprises, in about
a dozen words, the entire history of his life; the indiscriminate
generosity of his early, and the extravagant misanthropy, of his latter
days:—
"The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity
of both ends."[451:B]
The widely different fate of these two characters, is, likewise,
decisive of the opposite origin and nature of their misanthropical
conduct. Timon, that
—————————————— "monument,
And wonder of good deeds evilly betow'd,"[452:A]
dies broken-hearted, a martyr to self-delusion, and to the ingratitude
of mankind; whilst Apemantus, wrapped up in constitutional apathy,
travels on unscathed, a general and unfeeling railer on the frailty of
his species.
25. MEASURE FOR MEASURE: 1603. Mr. Malone's reasons for placing
the composition of this play towards the close of 1603, appear
to us perfectly unshaken by the arguments which Mr. Chalmers has
brought forward for the purpose of referring it to the subsequent
year. The validity of the alteration which this gentleman wishes to
establish, turns almost altogether on the cogency of the following
statement:—"Claudio," he says, "complains of '_the neglected act being
enforced against him_.' Isabella laments her being the sister of one
Claudio, condemned, on the _act of fornication_, to lose his head.
Now, the act which was thus alluded to, though not with the precision
of an Old Bailey solicitor, 'was the statute to restrain all persons
from marriage, until their former wives, and former husbands be dead,'
for which such persons, so offending, were to _suffer death_, as in
cases of felony. It was against this act, then, which did not operate
till after the end of the session, on the 7th of July, 1604, that
Shakspeare's satire was levelled."[452:B]
But this very act, it seems from Mr. Chalmers's reference, was passed
in the second year of James the First, and how, therefore, could
Claudio's complaint of a "_neglected_ act being enforced against him,"
apply to a statute thus recently issued, and whose operation had
only just commenced? The objection is insurmountable, and Claudio's
allusion was most assuredly to the act formerly passed on this subject
in the first year of Edward the Sixth.
The primary source of the fable of _Measure for Measure_, is to be
traced to the fifth novel of the eighth decade of the Ecatommithi of
Giraldi Cinthio, which was repeated in the tragic histories of Belle
Forest; but Shakspeare's immediate original was the play of _Promos
and Cassandra_ of George Whetstone, published in 1578, and of which
the argument, as given by the author, has been annexed by Mr. Steevens
to Shakspeare's production. On this elder drama, and on Shakspeare's
improvements on its plot, the following pertinent remarks have been
lately made by Mr. Dunlop:—"The crime of the brother," he observes,
speaking of Whetstone's comedy, "is softened into seduction: Nor is
he actually executed for his transgression, as a felon's head is
presented in place of the one required by the magistrate. The king
being complained to, orders the magistrate's head to be struck off,
and the sister begs his life, even before she knows that her brother
is safe. Shakspeare has adopted the alteration in the brother's crime,
and the substitution of the felon's head. The preservation of the
brother's life by this device might have been turned to advantage, as
affording a ground for the intercession of his sister; but Isabella
pleads for the life of Angelo before she knows her brother is safe,
and when she is bound to him by no tie, as the Duke does not order him
to marry Isabella. From his own imagination Shakspeare had added the
character of Mariana, Angelo's forsaken mistress, who saves the honour
of the heroine by being substituted in her place. Isabella, indeed,
had refused, even at her brother's intercession, to give up her virtue
to preserve his life. This is an improvement on the incidents of the
novel, as it imperceptibly diminishes our sense of the atrocity of
Angelo, and adds dignity to the character of the heroine. The secret
superintendence, too, of the Duke over the whole transaction, has
a good effect, and increases our pleasure in the detection of the
villain. In the fear of Angelo, lest the brother should take revenge
'for so receiving a dishonoured life, with ransom of such shame,'
Shakspeare has given a motive to conduct which, in his prototypes, is
attributed to wanton cruelty."[454:A]
Of _Measure for Measure_, independent of the comic characters which
afford a rich fund of entertainment, the great charm springs from the
lovely example of female excellence in the person of Isabella. Piety,
spotless purity, tenderness combined with firmness, and an eloquence
the most persuasive, unite to render her singularly interesting and
attractive. To save the life of her brother, she hastens to quit
the peaceful seclusion of her convent, and moves, amid the votaries
of corruption and hypocrisy, amid the sensual, the vulgar, and the
profligate, as a being of a higher order, as a ministering spirit
from the throne of grace. Her first interview with Angelo, and the
immediately subsequent one with Claudio, exhibit, along with the most
engaging feminine diffidence and modesty, an extraordinary display of
intellectual energy, of dexterous argument, and of indignant contempt.
Her pleadings before the lord deputy are directed with a strong appeal
both to his understanding and his heart, while her sagacity and address
in the communication of the result of her appointment with him to her
brother, of whose weakness and irresolution she is justly apprehensive,
are, if possible, still more skilfully marked, and add another to
the multitude of instances which have established for Shakspeare an
unrivalled intimacy with the finest feelings of our nature.
The page of poetry, indeed, has not two nobler passages to produce,
than those which paint the suspicions of Isabella as to the fortitude
of her brother, her encouragement of his nascent resolution, and
the fears which he subsequently entertains of the consequences of
dissolution:—
"_Isab._ O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,
Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain,
And six or seven winters more respect
Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
_Claud._ Why give you me this shame?
Think you I can a resolution fetch
From flowery tenderness? If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in mine arms.
_Isab._ There spake my brother; there my father's grave
Did utter forth a voice!"[455:A]
On learning the terms which would effect his liberation, his
astonishment and indignation are extreme, and he exclaims with
vehemence to his sister,—
"Thou shalt not do't;"
but no sooner does this burst of moral anger subside, than the natural
love of existence returns, and he endeavours to impress Isabella,
under the wish of exciting her to the sacrifice demanded for his
preservation, with the horrible possibilities which may follow the
extinction of this state of being, an enumeration which makes the blood
run chill:—
"_Claud._ O Isabel!
_Isab._ What says my brother?
_Claud._ Death is a fearful thing.
_Isab._ And shamed life a hateful.
_Claud._ Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling!—'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ach, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
_Isab._ Alas! alas!"[456:A]
"It is difficult to decide," remarks Mr. Douce, "whether Shakspeare is
here alluding to the pains of hell or purgatory. May not the whole be a
mere poetical rhapsody, originating in the recollection of what he had
read in books of Catholic divinity? for it is very certain, that some
of these were extremely familiar to him."[456:B]
Of our author's predilection for the imposing exterior, and fanciful,
but often sublime, reveries of the Roman Catholic religion, we have
already taken some notice; and, in reference to the very interesting
part which the Duke assumes in this play, under the disguise of a
monk, it is the observation of the learned and eloquent Schlegel,
"that Shakspeare, amidst the rancour of religious parties, takes a
delight in painting the condition of a monk, and always represents
his influence as beneficial. We find in him none of the black and
knavish monks, which an enthusiasm for the protestant religion, rather
than poetical inspiration, has suggested to some of our modern poets.
Shakspeare merely gives his monks an inclination to busy themselves
in the affairs of others, after renouncing the world for themselves;
with respect, however, to pious frauds, he does not represent them as
very conscientious. Such are the parts acted by the monk in _Romeo and
Juliet_, and another in _Much Ado about Nothing_, and even by the Duke,
whom, contrary to the well-known proverb, the cowl seems really to make
a monk."[456:C]